Young spent less than three years in prison.

This website was created in 1999 as we grieved her passing. Ten years later we still grieve the loss of such a beautiful soul.

A MESSAGE FROM CECY'S MOTHER:

Michele Marsha Griffin Mosher Young what have you done? You beg the courts for mercy. You gave my daughter none.

Kill someone and you are a star. When Ms. Young pleaded guilty in court to two felony counts in exchange for sentence concessions, her victim's name was mentioned only once during the entire hearing. That in a dry reading of a complaint against the killer. To date there has been no real opportunity in court to explain what a remarkable person Cecy was and what loss her killing is to family, friends, cyclists, teachers, patients and to society.

Cecy was a joy to me, her mother, from the date of her birth. She was fun to be around and many times a surprise. Many of us have "Cecy" stories. To pick one, when Cecy was in first grade her caretaker Mrs. Murphy called me at work to say Cecy disappeared after school. I called police and was told she was there, "interviewing" the chief. That day, Cecy's teacher had spoken to her class of postmasters, fire chiefs, and
chiefs of police. Cecy walked to the post office, the fire station, and police headquarters to see such persons in real life. They were enchanted with this child. Cecy was unique and always had a logical explanation for offbeat activities.

Cecy graduated from high school and college with honors and did required clinical affiliations prior to taking her boards for Registered Occupational Therapist. She worked consecutively in Pasadena, San Diego and Marin, during 1999 with children of county schools. Her clients were six, seven, ten year olds. Some were autistic, others had learning disabilities or trouble with fine and motor skills. Most of what Cecy did with children looked like play but was serious work. It is ironic that, if Cecy's life had been spared and Ms. Young's son injured during his mother's alcoholic binge 9/04/99, Cecy could have worked with the son's impairment.

\Another irony is that Cecy took great care of the life I gave her, exercising and eating a healthful diet, yogurt, no red meats, etc. (Well, she did have a weakness for ice cream). To think that Cecy was killed by a person indulging in hard liquor to excess and allegedly reaching for cigarettes as she crushed the life out of Cecy's healthy body with a 2-l/2 ton assault weapon.

A third irony is Cecy's letter to the Marin IJ editor printed 5/11/99 "... the next time you encounter a cyclist on the road or trail, why not try a friendly wave or greeting?" Michele Young either didn't read that or didn't care. Her expensive private defense attorney states Ms. Young "needs to be treated rather than punished." Treatment for alcoholism is available in prison. But what about treatment for her anger management problem? From the accident report, the killer is remembered by her personalized license plate of previous incidents running cyclists off the road. She honked her horn angrily at cyclists prior to killing Cecy, and a comment from one cyclist to another was, "this is road rage happening".

Cecy enjoyed the fine arts, museums, theater, Broadway musicals, books. She was competitive. She took up cycling after skiing, jogging and triathlons. She maintained her membership in and wore San Diego Bicycle colors after moving north. During the last two weeks of her life, before returning to San Anselmo, she rode in Seattle with RAW (Ride Around Washington). There were memorial rides for Cecy simultaneously on September 11 in Seattle, Marin, and San Diego. A week later a memorial at Mt. Baldy Village Church was sponsored by grade school and high school friends with whom she had an annual reunion three weeks before her death. Cecy was loyal. She loved cycling and cyclists, who chose well in depicting her a standard bearer for road safety.

Christmas 1999. Cecy's Christmas stocking hung empty, the first time since her birth. The most personal and most painful of Cecy's story by me, her mother, is of her final moments and I can only guess when they were.

Cecy is not the first of my children to die. Another daughter was ill of cancer many months and, just before breathing her last, came out of her coma and said "Mom". Did Cecy, at any time as the monster rolled over her, say or think "Mom, help me"? I couldn't help my baby. I couldn't. Did I have a right to something more than sitting by her broken body at a trauma center after she died? And Michele Young wants mercy.

The California State Legislature, in enacting Penal Code 191.5, a section which includes gross vehicular manslaughter states "... In view of the severe threat to public safety which is posed by the intoxicated driver, there is a compelling need to identify and penalize those who voluntarily consume alcoholic beverages to the point of legal intoxication and thereafter operate a motor vehicle, thereby combining sharply impaired physical and mental faculties with a vehicle capable of exerting great force and speed and causing severe damage and death." Note key words in lawmakers' intent, compelling need to penalize.

To estimate the cost of M. Young's alcoholic 9/04/99 misadventure is mind-boggling. Cecy's medical expenses alone totaled over $40,000. Granted some was covered by insurance, but you wonder why insurance costs are high? And then there was the cost of law enforcement and court costs. I object strongly to Cecy's killer being assured of sentence concessions as being contrary to the intent of the state legislature. Her past record proves unreliability. Any sentence less than the maximum allowable by law increases the probability of recidivism. The only l00% sure deterrence to Ms. Young driving drunk again is for the period of time she is incarcerated.

This is another plea for letters to the Marin County probation officer, Patricia Bonelli. Society deserves to be protected from the likes of Michele Young. Thank you for your kindnesses.

- Cecy's Mom

PLEASE WRITE TO:

Patricia Bonelli
Marin County Probation Department
3501 Civic Center Drive
San Rafael, California 94903-4195